Local history researchers across the UK are being encouraged to add the names of those killed in the First World War to a new online map.
Mapping Loss: Communities in War and Peace was launched by Lancaster University to mark Remembrance Day on 11 November.
The map grew out of Streets of Mourning, a collaboration between the university, Lancaster Military Heritage Group and the King’s Own Regiment Museum with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The project mapped the names of Lancaster’s First World War dead onto a street plan of the city, showing exactly where they and their families had lived.
Dr Corinna Peniston-Bird, part of the team behind the project, said: “It would be wonderful if people across Britain could check their home addresses on Armistice Day and discover this link to the past.
“We would love to ensure that all projects completed in towns and villages across Britain over the last six years have this way of sharing and visualising their data for the use of families, schools, researchers, and genealogists locally, nationally and, indeed, internationally.”
It would be wonderful if people across Britain could check their home addresses on Armistice Day and discover this link to the past
The Mapping Loss website already has details from across Lancashire and a handful of individuals from other parts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Researchers from across the UK are invited to add their findings to the map by uploading a spreadsheet listing the dead soldier’s first name, surname and street address, along with any other data they wish to be displayed.
The software then maps the information onto a current map of the locality with ‘pins’ that, once clicked on, show the details of the soldier’s life and death.
History teacher Adam Cree has spent years researching the impact of the First World War in Chorley, Lancashire. His findings are now available to search on the map.
One of the most touching stories he found was that of Ernest Shaw, a bottle washer at the mineral works.
He had a wife called Ellen and a son called Thomas and lived at 36 Jeffrey Street in Chorley.
Shaw spent the war serving in the 2nd King’s (Liverpool) Regiment. Tragically, he was in hospital at Salonika on Armistice Day on 11 November 1918, suffering from pneumonia and malaria. He died just hours after the peace was announced.
Rosemary Collins is the staff writer of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine
